The Neverending Pile Challenge: Had To Have It, Still Haven't Worn It

About a year and a half ago, Tasha let me try her Warm & Fozzie polish from the Muppets Collection by OPI and I fell in love instantly. I looked for it in a lot of  places but they seemed to be sold out and I didn't want to pay $20 for a bottle of polish at the department store. Eventually, I found it at a particular shop (that I will not mention because the bottle turned out to be a fake OPI!!!) and paid $17 (yes, $17 for a fake!!!) for one of the most beautiful polishes I had seen until then. And it sat in storage for a while, then more bottles came into the stash and Warm & Fozzie stayed in its place, almost forgotten.

When it came to today's prompt, I had to think which one fitted the category the best since I have a lot of polishes that I bought because I really wanted them but I'd  worn them on at least a finger for a day. Warm & Fozzie didn't even get that kinda treatment so I figured today would be the best day to bring it out and wear. 

I love all the tiny bronze, rose gold and gold shimmer particles of this polish, how they glisten in the sun and how reflective they are. My camera was freaking out a bit at the sight of all the reflected light so I brought the camera inside and used the light box. It's still very pretty. How did I go so long without using it?!!!

And because I can never leave good things alone, I decided to bring out an unused stamping plate to go with the polish. I even had to peel off the blue plastic film off the plate for this mani, I can say it was satisfying. 

I used the tribal pattern from BM-402 and Penny Talk, Blue Rhapsody and Good As Gold all from Essie's Metallic Mirrors collection (which have been used previously). 

I realise this looks kinda Easter-eggy down to the crinkling of the metallic polish over Warm & Fozzie but I was going for a tribal look.

I'm still quite pleased with the way this turned out and I'm glad to be back on the challenge.

Till next time, 

Lautra

It Was On A Starry Night...

You may be familiar with 'Dia de los Reyes Magos' or Day of the Three Wise Men, which is celebrated in some Latin American countries and parts of Europe on the 6th of January, as far as I know. The Wise Men would be the ones that would bring presents to kids instead of Santa Claus, however, the custom has changed, depending on who you ask and some kids get presents on Christmas and today. The adults get to eat 'rosca de reyes', a cake in the shape of a ring with crystallized/glazed fruit and whatever other food the host of the wants to serve. On the nails, I figured showing the star that guided the Three Wise Men to Baby Jesus to give them the gifts would be suitable for the occasion. I must be honest though, I intended to post this at Christmas time but never got around to writing up the words for the photos but it turned out for the better.

I  started with two coats of Butter London's Union Jack Black and saran-wrapped one coat of Max Factor's Extra Frost to create the night sky. I let that dry and used striping tape to create a thin triangle along three of my fingers to create the tail of the star... or comet, whatever you wanna call it, and used Essie's Good As Gold to colour it in. Topped it all off with one coat of Seche Vite.

I had some gold star studs but the mani would looked a bit odd with two different tones of gold so I painted the star with the Essie polish and let it dry for about half an hour. I had to bend the star a little bit so it would fit properly on the nail without snagging onto e v e r y t h i n g like some larger studs tend to do if left flat. I attached it with a drop of Seche Vite but I did it when it wasn't quite dry/tacky so I got some of the Good as Gold on the base. 

That could be considered star dust from the comet... Yeah... It could.

I had a bit of trouble photographing the prettiness of this mani so I tried it with sunlight (photos above) and in the lightbox (photo below). Oh! I also dented my index finger twice, once with a ring because I thought it would be a good idea to take off a ring while the polish was still tacky, and the second from moving my hands around normally.

I was really happy with the way this mani looked, the depth of the 'sky' and the continuity of the comet's tail did it for me. I even kept this for FOUR days. 

Hope you guys have had a good and safe holiday season. Here in this part of the world we've been having 40 degree days, which feels totally like summer.

Till next time, 

Laura.

Merry Christmas!

Super quick post to wish everyone a safe and merry Christmas and happy holidays! 

Used two coats of Nicole by OPI in Cinna-Man Of My Dreams and stamped with Essie's Good As Gold with the BM-225 plate.

That is all from me. Till next time, 

Laura

33 Day Challenge: Lines

Day 28 of The Crumpet's Challenge called to create a 'lines' mani. A line mani could be anything and seeing some of the manis that have been done with this prompt, I figured it'd be good to get myself inspired. After some (quick) online research, I decided to create a tangent lines mani with some new polishes I got last week. I was almost gonna use a very similar palette to the geometric mani from last week so I figured I better change it to keep things interest in this blog. I'm a bit undecided in the end result, it looks good from afar in real life but the colour scheme doesn't rock my boat that much. Plus there's no oomph element to it... And I just didn't know what to add to it.

So, I started with one coat of Essie's Good as Gold (got it for $12; about six months ago they retailed for $19 in AU) and let it dry completely. I put on a circular sticker on my index finger and used striping tape to create the tangent line. The green polish is Essence's The Green & The Grunge and the coppery one is Mister Rusty by the same brand (paid $1.65/each which is SUPER cheap for polish anywhere, yeah?) and tried to be really quick at taking the sticky bits off my fingers. I continued to repeat the process one finger at the time and topped it all off with one coat of Seche Vite when I was done colouring my digits in.

The index finger turned up pretty crisp on my first go and that's what got me going with the rest. I had to redo my ring finger twice due to ripping the base off with the sticker and a smudge. 

I'm thinking I could have done some stamping on the gold base or used different colours.  I really don't know; I could say I'm a little stumped creatively. :(

I just had a thought of putting tiger/zebra stripes in the circles and did try it but I just made it worse... Not a good nail day for me. Is that worse than a bad hair day? Thought for you. In the meantime, check out the other talented ladies' manis for today.

Till next time, 

Laura